A race ‘unrun’

Well it seems that our Achilles has run half the distance and is still ruminating on the infinite number of the distances that he has to run. But then he is not sure of even that. Did he move at all? He seems to be suspended in the space and not moving very much.

Let us leave Achilles to consider his own problems and think on ours. Unlike him who is caught in an unrealistic mathematical dilemma we all seem to be rushing away to some place. No one knows where the place is as yet. Many have tried to find out and have failed. Yet we are terribly rushed and are making great splashes trying to wade through something. What the hell is the stuff that we are wading through?

Well who knows? When you look around everything looks very complex. Once C.V. Raman remarked that it is useless to send space probes to the moon unless we can tell what is happening inside a blade of grass with any certainty. He was expressing disappointment in the way we tackle things. We do not know the first thing about the next thing we see around. Still we would like to be the masters of the universe.

We know that we can’t learn everything about the things that we see. But yet we would like to know them would we not? We think that it would be nice if we could do that. But then are we sure? Would it be more interesting if we did know everything about everything?

Is it not our very ignorance about it that makes the life interesting in our eyes?

It is our efforts to learn more about the world that is keeping us interested in it. If we knew how our life would turn out in the future we would become immediately fired up with an idea of changing it in some way to make it more interesting. We would not want to be the all knowing thing. It could be dead boring to be so.

In ancient texts there are several references to such a state and such a being. Invariably it gets bored with the state of affairs and it wants to divide into many or to play with itself. Well if it alone existed or exist all play could be called a sort of self play.

The ancient seers juggle with the idea of the One and the Two. When the one becomes two time and space is created. With the two the third or the observer also comes into being. The moment there is more than one there arises the question of individuality and the question of independence. Without these two things the play is not possible.
When there is more than one there is also uncertainty. It arises out of gaps in understanding.

I know the above is a purely ideological concept of the world. It presupposes a conscious entity at the back of everything. But then emergentism proceeds from another angle altogether. It has to believe in a linear progression of time to hold on to the view of the consciousness evolving out of matter.

Any way on a very limited level it is the uncertainty which adds glamour to life. If we were like the characters in a book or a teleplay performing pre determined actions we would not be very happy with it. We would like to brake the constraints and do some thing else.

This then is really what we are aiming at. This freedom from inevitability. We fear death because of this. That is the one thing we know to be inevitable in our lives. We have to die and we naturally rebel at it. The thing which rebels at death could be the consciousness which wants to survive.

It does not agree with the point of view that it has to disperse the moment it physical vehicle is destroyed. This fear of death comes up again and again in the discourses of our race. It is said that it is this fact of inevitability death which brought philosophy into being.

In trying to solve the problem it has led us into meshes which are worse than death.

And our pal the science is playing hide and seek at present. It would not admit that it has failed but it would also not claim that would succeed now or ever.

Well what are we to do about it?